Troll’s Eye View A Book of Villainous Tales Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling Available only from Teacher’s Junior Library Guild 7858 Industrial Parkway Edition Plain City, OH 43064 www.juniorlibraryguild.com Copyright © 2009 Junior Library Guild/Media Source, Inc. 0 About JLG Guides Junior Library Guild selects the best new hardcover children’s and YA books being published in the U.S. and makes them available to libraries and schools, often before the books are available from anyone else. Timeliness and value mark the mission of JLG: to be the librarian’s partner. But how can JLG help librarians be partners with classroom teachers? With JLG Guides. JLG Guides are activity and reading guides written by people with experience in both children’s and educational publishing—in fact, many of them are former librarians or teachers. The JLG Guides are made up of activity guides for younger readers (grades K–3) and reading guides for older readers (grades 4–12), with some overlap occurring in grades 3 and 4. All guides are written with national and state standards as guidelines. Activity guides focus on providing activities that support specific reading standards; reading guides support various standards (reading, language arts, social studies, science, etc.), depending on the genre and topic of the book itself. JLG Guides can be used both for whole class instruction and for individual students. Pages are reproducible for classroom use only, and a teacher’s edition accompanies most JLG Guides. Research indicates that using authentic literature in the classroom helps improve students’ interest level and reading skills. You can trust JLG to provide the very best in new-release books, and now to enhance those selections by giving your school the tools to use those books in the classroom. 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Copyright © 2009 Junior Library Guild/Media Source, Inc. 1 Troll’s Eye View A Book of Villainous Tales Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling JLG Guide written by Linda Barr Table of Contents About the Editors .......................................................................................................3 About the Genres.......................................................................................................4 Prereading Activities..................................................................................................5 Story by Story “Wizard’s Apprentice” by Delia Sherman........................................................7 “An Unwelcome Guest” by Garth Nix ...........................................................10 “Faery Tales” by Wendy Froud .......................................................................13 “Rags and Riches” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman...................................................15 “Up the Down Beanstalk” by Peter S. Beagle..............................................18 “The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces” by Ellen Kushner....................20 “Puss in Boots, the Sequel” by Joseph Stanton............................................22 “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” by Holly Black .................................................24 “Troll” by Jane Yolen........................................................................................26 “Castle Othello” by Nancy Farmer..................................................................29 “’Skin” by Michael Cadnum .............................................................................32 “A Delicate Architecture” by Catherynne M. Valente..................................35 “Molly” by Midori Snyder.................................................................................38 “Observing the Formalities” by Neil Gaiman ...............................................41 “The Cinderella Game” by Kelly Link............................................................43 Library Applications.................................................................................................46 Correlations to National Standards .......................................................................48 A school may reproduce copies of the pages in this book for use in its classrooms or library. Any other reproduction is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted, stored, or recorded in any form without written permission from the publisher. For permissions questions, contact Junior Library Guild. Copyright © 2009 Junior Library Guild/Media Source, Inc. 2 About the Editors Why Editors Get the Credit Usually the name of the person on the cover of a book is its author, but this book cover has the names of two editors. (A long list of authors is printed on the back cover.) How is this book different from other books? Why are these editors so important? Don’t all books have editors? This book is an anthology, a collection of stories and poems written by the fifteen authors listed on the back cover. Just how did those fifteen people from all over the world end up having their stories in this one book? The answer: because of two editors. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling came up with the idea for this collection and then created this book by asking the authors to retell old fairy tales in fresh ways. Then the editors worked with the writers to get the stories ready for publication. Here is how the process works: First, the editors had to choose authors who Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling could produce fresh and fascinating stories about have long been fascinated by fairy the heroes and heroines found in familiar fairy tales. In a recent article, they wrote: tales. Next the editors had to make sure that the “With our new anthology, we writers didn’t all retell the same story, such as decided to approach the subject Cinderella or The Three Little Pigs. Fifteen from a new direction—to look at the villains of the tales, not the versions of the same fairy tale would be too heroes, and to see how the stories much of a good thing! (Be sure to read page 78 might look through their eyes.” for more insight into this.) According to the article, the book Also, the editors needed to be sure the new was Ms. Windlings’s idea, sparked version of the tales hadn’t already been tried by by a comment of Ms. Datlow’s others beforehand. These stories had to be fresh. during an interview. Asked which Try to imagine how some of the authors spent fairy-tale character she liked best, long hours (or days or weeks) trying to think of Ellen said, “The wicked ones. They an unusual approach to a certain fairy tale, an get all the best lines.” approach that no one else had already written. The writers say, “We hope that Now Datlow and Windling did what editors young readers enjoy Troll’s Eye View. We hope that the stories always do. They read each selection carefully, amuse them . and scare them . looking for thoughts, actions, and whole scenes and enchant them . and surprise that did not make sense (even in a fairy tale). them. And if . they’re inspired to They searched for places that needed another seek out the tales that these stories sentence or paragraph to help explain what was are based upon, we’ll be happy happening or why a character made a certain indeed.” decision. They spotted words and sentences that Ms. Datlow lives in New York did not add to the story and should be omitted. City and thrives on the urban hustle Next, the editors and writers worked together to and bustle, while Ms. Windling lives make each story the best it could be, polishing in a small English village where the the sentences and correcting any errors, just as sheep out-number people. you do when revising your work. At last, the collection of stories was ready to be published. And now you know why the editors’ names are on the front cover of this book! Copyright © 2009 Junior Library Guild/Media Source, Inc. 3 About the Genres Fairy Tales, Poems, Short Stories All of the selections in this anthology are fairy tales (the genre), but they are a specific kind: the fractured fairy tale (see page 5). The stories in this book can be divided into two other genres: poetry and short story. The three poems are written in a style known as free verse, poems that don’t rhyme and do not follow a particular rhythm or meter or line length. They don’t have to follow punctuation rules, either. Free verse poetry has been popular since the late 19th century, practiced by such poets as Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, and E. E. Cummings. About the form, Robert Frost once said that writing free verse was “like playing tennis without a net.” The other twelve selections are short stories. They use the elements of fiction: characters, setting, conflict, point of view, theme, and—because of their short length—a fairly uncomplicated plot. These elements might be the same as or similar to the elements in the original fairy tale, but other aspects have been “fractured,” or altered. You might catch a glimpse of the original fairy tale, but with a different setting or a change of characters, definitely with a change of perspective, as we experience the story through the villain’s eyes. As is common in fairy tales, the time setting for most of these selections is in the “long ago” and the places include castles, kingdoms, forests, and villages. Many of the stories include fantasy and make-believe,